


get a little bit closer

by portraitofemmy



Series: Queliot Week 2019 [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Curtain Fic, Everyone Is Alive, Found Family, Friendship, M/M, Multi, Parties, Post-Season/Series 04, Quentin Coldwater Is Alive, everyone’s a little queer bc they’re millenials and It Be Like That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 23:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: It doesn’t happen entirely organically this time either, to be fair. Margo and Josh and Fen roll into town, with the plan of stay for a couple days, and it just so happens to coincide with Quentin’s standing friends-hang-out-we’re-friends-see lunch date with Alice. It’s a simple matter to send a rabbit to New-Penny and have him pick up Kady, and then: a party. With all of them.Queliot Week Day 3- Roommates





	get a little bit closer

**Author's Note:**

> I was not planning to post a fic tonight. I’ve had most of the other fics done for a week, and I had no idea for Roommates. Then I took a shower last night, got out of the shower, and wrote 2k. Again, this is me taking the prompt very, very loosely. Also, this fic is definitely a coda to [(this is) the beat of my heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18978655), but you probably don’t have to read that first.
> 
> More than anything else, this fic is a tribute to my own friends IRL, and our collective Pride 2019 playlist. Songs featured in this fic: [LGBT by CupcakKe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu_XwnAiMXg), [Juice by Lizzo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCrQL_8eMY), [Closer by Tegan and Sara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9NSMY8QiQ), [Cut To The Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o97_jDomyqc)
> 
> Unbeta'd because I wrote it so late.

Nights where they’re all in New York never happen. 

It doesn’t happen entirely organically this time either, to be fair. Margo and Josh and Fen roll into town, with the plan of _stay for a couple days_ , and it just so happens to coincide with Quentin’s standing friends-hang-out-we’re-friends-see lunch date with Alice. It’s a simple matter to send a rabbit to New-Penny and have him pick up Kady, and then: a party. With all of them.

Josh cooks, and Quentin cleans up all the scattered clutter of Julia-Eliot-Dessy-Quentin that had managed to sprawl over the condo. Margo and Eliot magically knock over an ATM and go on a very expensive liquor store run. “Be gay, do crime,” Eliot announces loudly as they stroll back into the condo, dropping two bottles of red wine into Quentin’s hands.

“Run away to another planet after.” Margo grins, and winks at Quentin. 

It’s extremely weird, having everyone Quentin really cares about in one room. He doesn’t think that’s happened since– Well, since they finally banished the Monster. Everyone had kind of scattered to the four winds after that. The condo might be a rotating-door homebase for everyone, but more often than not it’s just Quentin and Eliot and Julia and maybe one other person. 

So Quentin has a rocks glass with red wine in it, because they only had 4 wine glasses in the condo, and everyone he loves is in one place. Eliot’s running the playlist, which means it’s fucking _amazing_ , Quentin doesn’t know any of these songs but they all make him kind want to hug every single person in the room, and find another bottle of wine, and also have sex for like 45 minutes. It’s possible that might just be a pavlovian response to Eliot like– breathing.

_Fuck out my way when you see me, I'm rollin' with the LGBT, I'm rollin' with the LGBT, I'm rollin' with the LGBT. Lookin' like we belong on TV, I'm rollin' with the LGBT._

Kady and Penny have Julia pinned between them, grinding together slow and dirtying and laughing. Beer dangling from her fingertips, Julia’s got her arms looped around Kady’s shoulders, and Kady’s hands are gripping Penny’s hips. Next to them, Fen’s feeling herself, some kind of interpretive dance which seems to involve a lot of stabbing with imaginary knives. 

Margo’s shimmying up at Alice, who’s literally turning purple about it but at least she’s smiling. Smiling like she doesn’t want to be, like she’s doing it against her better judgement, but it’s actually maybe the happiest Quentin’s seen her since, well. Since they decided to see if they’d have better luck being happy around each other if they’re just friends. Dessy’s bouncing around between everyone’s feet, and Quentin watches, happy, as Eliot scoops her up so she doesn’t get trampled on. 

Like instinct, Eliot looks around for him, and Quentin feels it glow warm inside his chest, the way Eliot always _looks_ for him in a crowd. Always has, even back before they were Quentin-and-Eliot, back when Eliot was an unapproachable upperclassman and not the love of Quentin’s whole life. Eliot spots him, where he’s perched on the back of the couch watching their friends/roommates/fellow-quester get tipsy and handsy in their living room. A grin, and Eliot starts circling around the couch, coming up behind it so he can approach Q without getting in the way of Josh doing the cabbage patch. 

The song changes around them, and the little knots of people break up accordingly, as the beat slows down and swings up. 

_It ain't my fault that I'm out here gettin' loose, Gotta blame it on the Goose, Gotta blame it on my juice, baby. It ain't my fault that I'm out here makin' news, I'm the pudding in the proof, Gotta blame it on my juice._

“You’re wall-flowering,” Eliot accuses, holding the little puppy up so she can lick Quentin’s face. She does, and it’s slimy, but he lets it happen, wrinkling his face up so he can look at Eliot without getting a tongue in his eyeball. 

“Only a little. I was talking to Fen earlier. She wants to go to a concert and I might have agreed to go with her? I’m not sure. I like her.”

“I like her too,” Eliot agrees, laughing a little, depositing the dog on the seat of the couch. She scampers away immediately, jumping off to run back to trying to get caught under Alice’s heels. “How much have you had to drink, Baby Q?”

“This is my second,” Quentin says, looking down into the cup of red wine in his hands. “I know I’m supposed to take it easy with my meds, don’t worry.”

“Okay. Sorry, not trying to micromanage,” Eliot murmurs, coming up behind Quentin where he’s sitting perched on the back of the couch, tuck them together back to chest. 

“I know. I appreciate you looking out for me.” Eliot hums into his hair, and Quentin relaxes back into him. “It’s pretty magical, isn’t it?”

“What?” Eliot murmurs, looping his arms around Quentin’s chest. He smells like wine and cologne and a little bit like rain, nothing like the Monster and entirely like the rest of Quetin’s life. 

“Being 20-something and queer and in New York City? With like– roommates who are more like family and a dog and a boyfriend and– I know the world is ending, the world is always ending. But this is why we do it, right? So we can have this?”

Eliot makes a sort of choked sound, and Quentin knows if he could see his face, Eliot would have that look of terrified hope that he gets sometimes. “Pretty much, Baby Q. I mean, it is the millenial dream, after all. Living in a big commune with your friends, doing gay shit.” Eliot’s nose brushes against the back of Quentin’s neck, lips soft against the nape just under his hair. “You lived with Julia before Brakebills, right?”

“Yeah,” Quentin agrees, swirling his wine glass under his nose to breathe in the smell, sharp and fruity. “Well. I slept in the office of her loft. Which her mother paid for. I don’t know if you’d call that _living together_ or like... a platonic sugar daddy kind of situation.”

Eliot snorts, inelegant, and he’s probably drunker than he’s been in a while, but nowhere near the drunkest Quentin’s ever seen him. Just enough to be a little handsy, a little clinging, and Quentin really can’t imagine a world in which he’d mind being held close to Eliot Waugh. “Margo and I used to talk about living together after grad school. At our most co-dependent, we were going to share _everything._ Beds, makeup... boys.”

“As a boy who’s _been_ shared by you and Margo–”

“Okay, okay, Coldwater, I know–”

“I’m just saying. You’d have broken SoHo.” 

He can feel Eliot’s smile against his skin. They sit in silence, watching their friends dance together and joke and laugh. Quentin watches Margo spin Fen around, watches Alice and Kady talk intensely while Julia leans into Kady’s side.

“Who do you think Kady’s gonna get into bed first, Julia or Alice?” Quentin murmurs to Eliot. The point of Eliot’s chin comes to dig into Quentin’s shoulder, and he can feel Eliot’s breath against his ear.

“Alice,” Eliot says thoughtfully. “Julia is very preoccupied with New-Penny.”

“Kady’s been very preoccupied with Old-Penny forever.” 

“Hm, very true. How long is it going to take them to see the very obvious solution to that problem.”

Quentin snorts, tipping his head against Eliot’s cheek. “Not everyone is mildly poly, dear.”

“Their loss.”

A few beats, then. “You know, Penny and Alice fucked once. They could all–”

“Oh, god. There’s too many vaginias in that mental image, for me, Q.” 

“Penny and three girls. Hardly seems fair.”

“Well, he did watch everyone he knew die. Maybe he’s owed a little karmic come-upance.” Eliot’s mouth opens warm against the side of Quentin’s neck, and he’s honestly not thinking about any of the girls at all, when Eliot says pointedly, “didn’t Penny incept a sex dream you had featuring Julia and Alice? Because I definitely remember you telling me about that.”

“Okay, you know what–” Quentin huffs, reaching up to shove Eliot (gently) away from him. Eliot sways away, laughing, and then sways back. Quentin graciously allows himself to be cuddled. “We should stop imagining our friends having sex. They’re practically our family.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing from the age of 22 to 26? Pretty much just imagining my friends having sex, Q.”

“You’re terrible,” Quentin complains, and it kind of sounds like ‘I love you.’ 

The song switches again, fading into buzzing synths, and Quentin to can feel Eliot start to boop with it.

“Will you dance with me?” Eliot asks, soft, and there’s no pressure to it, because Eliot would be happy to drift away and dance with Margo if Quentin says no. But he’ll be happier, dancing with Quentin, and that’s just such a precious, precious thing that Quentin can’t say no. Doesn’t want to.

_All I want to get is a little bit closer. All I want to know is, can you come a little closer? Here comes the breath before we get a little bit closer, here comes the rush before we touch, come a little closer, the doors are open, the wind is really blowing. The night sky is changing overhead._

They loop together and it’s easy to let himself get pulled into Eliot’s chest, into the rhythm of his body. Quentin’s got faint memories of a whole life spent dancing with Eliot, dances at festivals and weddings and around the fire and on the mosaic. Fillorian dances, much more complex than swaying to the rhythm of music pulsing through the speakers in the living room. It’s a faint memory, but it’s dear as anything, and it bleeds trust into every breath Quentin takes. He’ll let Eliot lead him wherever he wants to go.

_It's not just all physical, I'm the type who won't get oh so critical, so let's make things physical, I won't treat you like you're oh so typical. I want you close, I want you, I won't treat you like you're typical, I want you close, I want you, I won't treat you like you're typical._

Eliot’s chest is reassuringly solid, and he’s moving without the ache of pain tonight. Maybe they’ll have to pay for that tomorrow, maybe Quentin will have to deal with the social hang-over of being happy tonight, but honestly, he’ll take it. He’ll take it and love it and push up on his toes to kiss Eliot because this. _This._ This is the whole fucking point. 

They break apart as the song fades, and Julia gravitates over to them. He grins at her, as she worms in under Eliot’s arm so the three of them are looped together in a little knot.

“Everything I’ve heard about your excellent parties is true,” Julia tells Eliot grandly, and he laughs at her, tugging her in against him so they can sway, the three of them. 

“Oh, Hedge Bitch. There’s not even any magical elements to this party. This is a _muggle party._ ”

“Well, I’m having a good time, and so is everyone else, and Q’s not hiding in his room reading _Fillory and Further_ , so.”

“Hey,” Quentin protests. “I’ve _grown as a person_ , maybe, okay?” 

Julia grins, loose, tipping her head sideways to rest on Eliot’s shoulder. She’s grown too, he knows that, but she’s still– his Jules. His Jane Chatwin. His best fucking friend, his roommate, his boyfriend’s co-conspiritor. His _family._ “I’m not saying Eliot wasn’t at least a little bit involved in you growing as a person, because I’ve _listened_ to you two talk about _raising a child together._ But you know, mostly I’m just happy you’re here. That we’ve got this.”

“I second that,” Eliot agrees, arms looped around both of them. “We’re pretty good roommates.”

“Yeah, not bad,” Quentin agrees, feeling full of– Love. So much love. It’s maybe the wine talking, but also maybe just because Julia and Eliot are fucking awesome. Just. As People. “Speaking of, we need to go find a nest of cockatrice eggs before the first of the month.”

Julia groans, and Eliot swears a blue streak, and around them the music changes again. 

_Ah, I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling, I wanna dance on the roof, you and me alone, I wanna cut to the feeling, oh yeah, I wanna cut to the feeling, oh yeah. I wanna play where you play with the angels, I wanna wake up with you all in tangles, oh I wanna cut to the feeling._

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found as portraitofemmy on most places, but check out [twitter](https://twitter.com/portraitofemmy) and [tumblr](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


End file.
